FREAK TITLES.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 230, 28 September 1929, Page 10 (Supplement)

FREAK TITLES.

NEW BIDS AND CLAIMS. HUSBAND-CALLING. ASTOUNDING AND CURIOUS CONTESTS. America the happy hunting-ground for freak stunts, and summer lias brought the annual entrants for freak championships, states a writer in a recent issue of a New York contemporary. Recently Bill Williams, a Rio Hondo (Tex.) pasterer, completed his stunt, occupying almost a month, of pushing a peanut with his nose along a 22-mile route leading to the summit of Pike's Peak. Last year he pushed the peanut along 11 miles of macadam near Rio Hondo. Hβ liked the taste of fame and proceeded on the Pike's Peak route this summer. He contrived a device, attachable to his nose, for protecting its epidermis. He wore knee pads. He succeeded in his purpose of getting into the public prints. Contest Open for Wives. In Ponca City, Okla., Mayor Will A. Brooks has issued a call for rollingrpin throwers in a contest to he held this summer to determine which wife in the community is most proficient in that respect. In Paris, a New Yorker, Dr. Robert E. Moore, has gone into training for the "~ 7000 golf shots he estimates he will require over a course to Berlin. The distance is 674 miles as the crow flea. But there is a matter of hazards in the form of mountains, rivers, woods and buildings that will extend the course considerably. The marathon dance has lost its appeal. It has been overdone. Also the "dance" is no more than a shuffle and holds no thrill for the spectator. And the gabfest is out. Its aspirants in last year's contests passed so much time and vocal effort bickering in rest periods that they talked themselves out of achieving any record of Thus, the dubious glory of ' being the world's most continuous talker remains with Parlatus, Berlin actor, who talked for 45 hours before he , ran short of words. ' Champion Coffee Drinker. Albert Baker, of New York, finds life pleasant because none has outdone his feat of drinking 250 cups of coffee in four hours. Nor is his delight with himself any more enthusiastic than that of Harry O'Brien,, of Paterson, who ran away with the peanut-lolling championship by urging them with a stick along a mile of streets. The annual fair at Grinnell, lowa, ' holds no event so alluring as the hus-band-calling contest. The title at the moment belongs to Mrs.. A. H. Dempster. Eleven wives last year participated, yodeling, yoohooing, barking, stamping and clapping! their hands. Off in a ,far section of the lot the husbands waited. . One woman impatiently shrieked, "Hey, you c'nion over here!" There was no response. ! But Mrs. Dempster neither shrieked nor whistled. She merely cupped her hands and trilled beautifully like a mocking bird. Her own husband did not answer, but nineteen husbands in the grandstand leaped from their seats and the judges felt they could do nothing other than call her the winner. Joseph de Virgilio, "of Cambridge, Mass., is a neighbourhood hero. He has something to leave to posterity. On August 31, 1927, he walked on stilts the 42 miles from Boston to Providence. His legs were swollen, but the stilts suffered far more. Disregarding union restrictions, Jim. Brown, of Kansas City, laid 36,000 paving blocks in a day—a freight car holds 25,000. That energised "Slim" Peterson, of Arkansas City, Kan., into action and he ran up a total of 50,000 while the cinema cameras took his picture. Tony Glassoo broke both their hearts and their records by laying 69,000 blocks. *If you are bothered with a servant problem get in touch with Stella Huoff, of Cross Keys, N.J. In one hour and fifteen minutes she washed and hung 135 pieces of laundry.

Women who are reluctant to push baby carriages may be reminded.of Mrs. Lillian Groom, a sturdy matron of London, England, who trundled a perambulator to Brighton, 52 miles away, in twelve hours and twenty minutes in April, 1923. Other Queer Championships. Arthur AHegretti's idea of show in <r o ff was to roller skate from Buffalo to New York in August, 1927, in fifty-eight 'houra. He "dined" on soda water and ■used up three pairs of roller skates and six ibottlee of oil. Arthur Hoffman shackled Ihims&lf tp the steering wheel of ihis car in New York on December 21, 1927, and did not quit until 'h©, had driven 100 hours. Two youths in 1912 sta/rted walking 'backward from Salem, N.C., to New York. There is no record of how *hey wound up, whether they 'achieved their goal or backed into the Atlantic. ........■■

, P. B. McCartney cla/ime the street car transfer championship of the world. This Rochester gentleman fcas collected more than 10,000 transfers and boasts ihe cam. accommodate you for any street railway in the world. J; H. Oyler played a course thirtyfive miles long, taking 1087 strokes between the Maidistone fliaks and the I/ittlestone greens in England. He lost seventeen balls in two and a half days. . Squeek Schrantz, of the St. Paul A. C, claims to foe the all-wet champion, Shaving bobbed in the water 1843 times in one tour on March 24, 1928. T. M. Jones, of London, avers 'he is something of an all-wet cfampom ihimseif, having imbibed sLety-seven eteina of • Bbeer for ■breakfast- ' The Miss Amerio* crown as no incentive ifco Ina Leslie, eeventeen yeare old, of Los Angeles. She finds her .happiness in. 'heri record for milking cows at the annual lair. ■ j In. September, 1926, Bud Reynolds, of Coilu'm'bus, Ohio,•played the piano for 105 tours. Hβ tainted jhalf way along, but -was revived and continued. When ihe finished !hie fimgere were in bandages. At Alderahot, England, in 1913, Tom Burrows swung a pair of Indian clubs 104 (hours—and .became insane. ■ George 'Smith; of Utica, raised ihimseif on his toes 20,000 times. ■ Mrs. Near Feese, fifty yeans old, of Middietarg, Pa., on November 22, 1918,' rolled a, •Ixarre-l for eight miles. Mme. Verdier, in Paris, made 2000 sandwiches in .nine hours. The Spirit of Erankliff, a kite hrewed by two St. Paul yxprjhs, Paul Berg and Isidore Legan, tallied 2856 whirls, loops and ewerves. Sylvia Moskowitz, twelve years old, of the- same city, bounced a golf 'ball 2710 times and fchus attained tike public notice. Alvin Tiheodiore Sytversten, also

of St. Paul, essayed a staying-awake contest. Syversten's eyes closed after seventy-two hours. Gastronomic Feats. For all-round -gastronomic feat, the' crown ought to eet safely on Sallie Rope'e brow. Or it would have, had she not succumbed after her arduous championship enterprise. Sallie was a dusky lass of Kansas City, Mo., who, in 1910, •had (heard of the alimentary capacities of 'ostriches and. goats and announced she could pack in far more hardware than an ostrich or a goat. When the autopsy was (performed the medical examiner listed 1551 items, including 453 nails, forty-two screws, nine bolts, five spoons, a nail file, five thimbles, sixty-three buttons, 105 safety pins, 115 hairpins, 13G common pins, fifty-two carpet tacks, fifty-seven needles, eiglnty-fiv© pebbles and a fourfoot string of beads. The East Side still recalls the "ihotdog" contest tin a Second Avenue saloon on November 29, 1923, when Val Meiiges swooned after the forty-fourth frankfurter, and John Hinsin, uncoiling a new supply nibbled away placidly to his fifty-third before calling it a meal. John Damman, at Red Wing, Minn., on December 14, 1927, won the soup-sipping title by splashing, through three and a half quarts. Two competitors were- diequalified. In 1814, two Britons set out to determine whether the water drinker or wine sipper was the more enduring. The water man almost drowned. The wine drinker won. But he didn't know it until two day slater. Martin McKee, of Springfield, 111., a miner, ate twenty-live large pickles before quitting with the complaint that he was ch&king on the warts. Being somewhat voracious, John Samuel Francis Dalton, of New Orleans, consumed the following menu on January 7, 1927: Twelve dozen eggs, eight oysters, three and one-half cup's of coffee, one and one-half quarts of wine, one box of crackers, two slices of jelly cake, one ! bottle of sauce, three bananas, four ! onions and six green peppers —and exclaimed, "I'll try it s-.gain to-morrow. I haven't much appetite to-day!" But next day they were placing ice on his head. Plenty of Pie Eaters. The woods are full of pie eaters, oyster consumers and others who, in their quest of fame, delight to caress their palates with extraordinary quantities of edibles. C. S. Carter, of .Groton, S.D., on December G, 1925, developed a new field of competition by eating fifty-one flapjacks. Though a rival, W. P. G. Meyers ate eight less the next day, Meyers was hailed as the champion because his flapjacks had two inches more diameter. Dan Henderson, of Jonesboro, Ga., on November 24, 1923, completed sixty-nine hours of steady chewing on a quid of tobacco.

For twenty-nine years Alma Boggs, of Shrewsbury, England, has partaken ardently of one and one-half pints of vinegar a day. Lily Marshall, of Connellsville, Pa., has attended Sunday school more than 800 consecutive Sundays. On the other hand, Louise Moody, of Goshen, N.Y., says she has been a church member thirty-five years and has never been at church service. Fred McClane, of Enid, Okla., has attended more than 5000 funerals. There is still ' another championship class composed of the "never haves." In New Jersey is' a man who has been repairing bicycles forty years and has never ridden on one. A cabin boy on the Berengaria who has made 200 crossings, has never returned to his home in London, which is two hours.from the pier. In Falls City, Neb., the Leechman brothers have an undisputed claim to the all around "never have" crown. One is seventy-two years old, the other is seventy-three. They insist they never have read a daily paper, have not eaten a meal cooked by > a woman for fifty years, have never used a telephone, and have not been to Omaha because one day when they got five miles from home they lost their way and have been too timid since to venture even that distance from the farm. John Haas, of Apollo, Pa., never saw a circus, and C. Hassenmiller, of New Albany, Ind., never went to a ball game. Knocking wood while he says it, L..;.C. vjßoynton, of Browmvood, Tex., boasts that in his long life he never has called a' doctor. *